I work in a small engineering office for a manufacturing company. I’ve been on the shop floor and am entering the office through the door, which I open (I thought) as normal. Apparently not.

Admin Assistant: “Don’t open the door so violently! You’re getting as bad as [Coworker #1].”

Me: “Was I? My apologies. I shall endeavour to open it in a calmer manner so I don’t become unhinged.”

As I go to sit down, I’m waiting for some comment, but there is nothing.

Me: “What, no reaction?”

Admin Assistant: “Nope!”

Coworker #2: “Well, I just silently shook my head.”

Me: “Oh, well.”

Just then, the door is flung open. [Coworker #1] enters and makes his way to his desk.

Me: *To [Coworker #1]* “Apparently, I open the door too violently.”

Coworker #1: “Who said that?”

Admin Assistant: “I did! You know I’m always telling you not to open the door so wildly; [My Name] is doing it just as badly.”

Me: “And she never even reacted to my pun!”

Coworker #1: “What pun was that?”

Me: “I said I would try to open it more calmly so I don’t become unhinged. Not even a groan! Maybe she likes my puns now. Maybe she… a doors them.”

Just then, from the other side of the office, comes a strangled noise.

Admin Assistant: “Urgh!”

I stick my arm in the air triumphantly.

Me: “There it is!”

Former Coworker: “Have you heard about the open latte sandwich they’re serving at [Taco Fast Food Place]? They have a sign for it in the drive-thru.”

I was confused until I visited that restaurant later. The sign in the drive thru said, “Open late.”

I set up a “running club” at lunch. Really, it’s just a load of us who go for a run together at lunchtime. It starts with just two but grows and grows. I end up sending out a group email for best times of the week, photos, maps, out of work events — you name it.

Out of nowhere, I get called into a manager’s office.

Manager: “I understand you are running a club?”

Me: “Yes, we all run at lunch. It’s very popular.”

Manager: “I’ve had some complaints.”

Me: “Complaints? What could anyone complain about?”

Manager: “Well, let me see.” *Reads off his screen* “Err, exclusionary, using company time, and, err… fatphobic?”

Me: “I don’t know where this is coming from. Everyone is welcome and we have all abilities and body types.”

Manager: “I’m not endorsing these comments. I am just relaying them and talking to you about them to see if there is an issue that needs to be resolved.”

Me: “This is probably someone who just hates to see others better themselves. We aren’t excluding anyone. And it’s all on our lunch, so there’s no impact to work.”

Manager: “Okay, okay. Keep doing it, but if I see more complaints, I have to investigate them.”

Me: “Okay, sure.”

Annoyed but not deterred, I keep the club going. Not even a month later, I get called back again.

Manager: “The complaints keep coming.”

Me: “But they’re not founded in reality!”

Manager: “Yes. I have spoken to a few of the members, and I agree with you. But as long as you are running a company club, you need to hear these complaints and act on them. I cannot stand by and ignore any complaint.”

Me: “So, we have to stop doing what we like, on our own time, because of one bitter individual?”

Manager: “That’s not what I said.”

Me: “I don’t understand.”

He explained that while it was a company club, run with company email, he had to enforce the complaints procedure. He pointed out that social media was fine as long as we didn’t associate with the company and didn’t exclude anyone

So, the club lives on, and there have been no more complaints. It became much more and many of us meet up outside of work — runners and non-runners alike.

[Coworker] used to work in a different department, but for reasons we were never told, had to quickly change to ours. This always surprised me, as I remember her complaining constantly about our department before she started to work in the other. Either way, we welcomed her, and we all did our part to train her and get her set up.

[Coworker] is what many would call an attractive young woman, and she certainly knew this. She would easily get some of the younger guys to “help” her do her work. When she didn’t want to do even that, she would talk and talk — mainly about herself — stopping them from doing anything, either.

After a few months, the department was way behind on work, complaints started to come in about delays, and we were given a dressing down by senior management. 

This improved things, but not for long. Eventually, they realised that [Coworker] was a major disruption, but instead of disciplining her, they put her with me. I decided what work she did and I was to report back if she didn’t do it.

She quickly learnt that fluttering her eyelashes wouldn’t work on me, and the other guys had warnings not to help her. She did what any reasonable person would do — not — she started taking longer and longer toilet breaks, lunch breaks, etc. to avoid doing any work.

I reported that back and she made a complaint of bullying. When that didn’t work, she requested to change departments again. No one would have her. Then, someone somewhere pulled some strings and gave her a last chance and she changed departments again

She lasted six months before being sacked as “unmanageable”.

I had a young coworker that was just starting out his first adult office job. He wasn’t the best employee out there, but he was contributing, and some of the more experienced employees were working with him on how to settle in and be seen as a higher-level contributor to grow his career.

Then, one day, eighteen months in, [Coworker] just stopped showing up and was not appearing on the company instant messaging system. It was crunch time for the project, and it was allowable to work from home, so most of us just assumed he’d set his IM availability to only appear online to his immediate team so that he could concentrate. But then, his team lead who worked from a different location reached out to those of us who had offices next to him to find out what was going on because he wasn’t responding to her, either.

After a week of this, we got an email from management that [Coworker] had put in his two-week notice as of one week before — he backdated it to when he stopped working — and they asked us to arrange the handover of his badge and laptop on his official last day. My officemate, as the most senior local person, set up a time for [Coworker] to come in to handle all of that. It just so happened that the date was the day after our crunch time was over and we had been granted permission to leave at lunchtime, so the time was set to be 10:00 am.

The appointed time arrived, but no soon-to-be-former coworker. Lunchtime arrived, still nothing. The rest of us were still hanging around because we didn’t want to leave [Officemate] with no witnesses in case [Coworker] never showed but claimed he did and no one was there.

Finally, around 2:00 pm, [Coworker] showed up to turn in his stuff and we got to ask him what he planned to do next. Apparently, he and his brother had decided to become music producers and he was quitting to get started with that. We wished him well while privately shaking our heads because, according to stories he had told us in the past, he was the first member of his family to stick it out and get a degree and also the only one who had not been in trouble with the law.

The next Monday, I got a strange email from my HOA telling us that there had been a home invasion in the neighborhood over the weekend but that we should not be concerned because all the people knew each other and it was unlikely to occur again. I Googled my neighborhood only to find [Coworker]’s photo. He and his brother were listed as wanted for a shooting that occurred during the home invasion in question.

Managers were called, security freaked out, and we were asked to hold onto [Coworker]’s laptop rather than sending it in to be wiped just in case the authorities needed access to it. He was eventually located and arrested, facing multiple felonies. We don’t really know what happened with his case as, one day, it just disappeared from the court calendar. We assume some sort of plea deal was reached.

And then, a year later, some of us started getting job reference requests. [Coworker] was apparently applying to be an office drone with financial institutions and thought we would make good references for him. We couldn’t really say anything about how he had ghosted us as part of quitting his job. All we could really say was, “Yeah, he worked here. Can’t say anything more, but you should probably Google his name.”

I’m amazed at the audacity (or cluelessness) of someone walking out on a job at crunch time, getting arrested for multiple felonies, and then still expecting a good reference.